Insured losses from a late March 2025 ice storm that struck Ontario and Quebec have climbed to $466 million, up from an initial estimate of $342 million, according to updated figures from Catastrophe Indices and Quantification Inc. (CatIQ) released by the Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC).
The storm, which ranked as Canada’s costliest severe weather event of 2025, now stands as the sixth costliest in Ontario’s history, the IBC said.
The $466 million figure is the fifth and final estimate from CatIQ, serving as a one-year snapshot of the insurance market. It covers both commercial and residential property claims, as well as auto claims, including additional loss adjustment expenses. It reflects a slight decrease from the $490 million six-month estimate, due largely to a decline in personal lines losses in Ontario.
CatIQ’s broader full-year catastrophic insured loss figure for the storm, which covers all catastrophic loss categories, stands at $490 million – nearly a quarter of Canada’s entire 2025 annual catastrophic insured loss total. Both figures originate from CatIQ data.
The April 2025 estimate followed a storm that downed trees and power lines, flooded basements, and damaged vehicles across both provinces. More than one million homes and businesses in Ontario lost power, along with roughly 70,000 properties in Quebec.
Maximilien Roy, vice-president of strategy at IBC, said the figures reflect a broader, decade-long trend in Canada’s disaster landscape.
“Severe weather events continue to intensify. Insured losses from catastrophic weather and wildfires have nearly tripled over the past decade, rising from $14 billion annually to $37 billion, while claims have almost doubled,” Roy said.
He added that the trend demands a shift in how communities are built and planned.
“This reality demands a different approach to how we build and plan communities – and investing in resilience now is critical to keeping Canadians safe and insurance available and affordable,” he said.
Roy further called for coordinated action between the insurance industry and all levels of government.
“Canada has the opportunity to be a world leader in resilience, but seizing that opportunity will require concerted action,” he said. “Insurers and policymakers at all orders of government must work together now to protect Canadians from the growing risks they face in an increasingly volatile world.”
The IBC’s property and casualty (P&C) insurance industry has urged governments to invest in flood-defence infrastructure, strengthen land-use planning to keep development away from flood-prone areas, expand FireSmart initiatives in high wildfire-risk communities, and update building codes to better protect homes and businesses.
Following what it described as the worst year on record for catastrophic weather events in Canada’s history, the IBC released a three-point resilience plan calling on governments to keep new homes out of high-risk areas, strengthen hazard mapping and public infrastructure, and close protection gaps through public-private partnerships.
